


15 Voicemails

by Deannie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-07
Updated: 2006-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many other people called John WInchester during Sam's search for a cure during "Faith"?</p>
            </blockquote>





	15 Voicemails

**Author's Note:**

> _Takes place near the end of "Faith"_  
> 

Sam had been snoring away for a good hour before Dean figured he was safe. Every muscle hurt when he breathed and he still wasn't sure his head wasn't going to explode thanks to that damn reaper, but he couldn't find any comfort in sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, Leyla's face swam before him. She could have lived. He could have given in--hell, he almost had...  


But that was all ancient history now. He was going to live and she was going to die and he stuffed that away with the rest of the useless thoughts. He couldn’t change it, so why let it eat him up inside?  


Why not just stop thinking and wait until his brother was so deeply asleep that he wouldn’t hear the cell phone?  


Sam would kill him if he knew Dean was doing this. In the car on the way here, Dean had had the bad sense to ask whether Sam had called Dad. Hey, he was dying--he was allowed to make a couple of mistakes, right?  


Sam had gripped the steering wheel so hard it hurt _Dean’s_ hands.  


”Called his voicemail, yeah.” Short, sweet, shut the hell up, Dean, and let it go.  


It wasn’t like Dean was actually expecting Dad to answer the phone when Sam called. He had his own work to do--and he was closer to the demon that killed Mom than Dean was likely to get any time soon. Still, there was a little part of him that he couldn’t quite shut up that made him wonder whether Dad had a good reason for not calling. A fatal reason.  


He stowed that thought away, too, as he watched the steady rise and fall of Sam's chest. He’d sleep through until the nightmares started, Dean knew. And the nightmares weren’t always about Jess anymore from the panicked bed checks Sam had been making every time he woke now… He was spending too much time worrying about his brother, and that was Dean’s job.  


The cell phone he gripped was making his hand sweat, but he still couldn’t quite risk opening it. Maybe he was just afraid of what getting Dad’s voicemail again might mean.  


He shook his head at the useless thought and flipped up the phone, scrolling down his list of numbers until he got to Dad’s. He winced at the loud tone that told him the call was trying to connect.  


_"This is John Winchester. I can’t be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 866-907-3235. He can help."_  


”Yeah, doing a great job of that these days,” Dean grumbled over the sound of the beep.  


"Hey, Dad...." He tried not to sound as tired as he felt and kept one eye on his sleeping brother the whole time. "Um... I know Sam called you--along with everyone else on the planet--so... I wanted you to know..."  


* * * * * *  


John Winchester stumbled into his motel room, his legs holding him up just long enough for him to get to the toilet, where he dropped to his knees and emptied his stomach again. The stink of blood and rotted corpses and ghoul flesh made him gag once more and he spent a long moment on the tile floor, bringing up nothing but bile. He fought back to his feet before he could start bringing up blood as well--he had enough of that on him already.  


It had been a bad week, he mused wryly as he stripped off his clothes (he'd have to burn those) and turned on the shower. Ghouls were a pain in the ass at the best of times, and given the broken ribs he was still sporting from the Demon’s minion in Springfield, this sure as hell wasn't the best of times. He'd been too slow because of his injuries, and the ghoul had gotten its teeth into him before he could react. He supposed he should be glad to be alive, but as the hot water burned over a hundred bites and bruises, he was thinking that death might be preferable.  


Still, at least the water washed away most of the smell, though he wasn't sure his knees would hold out long enough to get truly clean. He'd shower again a couple of times before he had to leave the room again--to hose down the inside of his truck if nothing else--and maybe then he'd be washed enough to be allowed into a diner to eat. Hell, he'd take a drive-through burger joint just now...  


Or his bed.  


That sleeping surface called to him as he exited the bathroom, but he forced himself to keep going long enough to dig through his bag and retrieve his cell phone. Caleb was supposed to get back to him with whatever he'd been able to dig up on the Demon, and John didn't think he could wait for the information until he woke from what was likely to be a twenty-hour sleep. His hands shook with exhaustion as he pulled out the phone and turned it on.  


15 messages. Hell.  


He'd been out of touch for less than a week, for God's sake. Something must have hit the fan somewhere for this kind of explosion of voicemails. Dean and Sam had long since stopped bothering to call five times a day, for which John could only be glad. The boys had to realize that there were some things he had to take care of himself. And they had their own jobs to do, after all. He'd always thought Dean understood that.  


With a sigh, he put the phone to his ear and dropped into the chair by the table, using his free hand to rummage around in his bag for his first aid kit. He had to get these bites cleaned and dressed before they festered...  


"John, it's Helen." The old woman sounded stressed and tired, and John waited to find out what the rest of the messages were likely to be about. Helen was often one of the first to know when things started going wrong. "Call me as soon as you get this, unless you're already on your way out there." Out where? Her voice turned hard and cold suddenly. "If you are, could you bother to call and let me know what's going on?"  


That was weird. He hit the button to get to the next message and held the phone up to his ear with his shoulder so he could have both hands free to tear open the alcohol wipes.  


"It's Jim. Call me." The priest from Minnesota sounded angry. "Whatever the hell you got them into, you'd damn well better get them out."  


Them? The boys? He hit the button again.  


"Hey John? It's Caleb. Listen, I've got some information, but I'm sure that by now, you've heard from Sam, so you've got other problems. I'll wait for your call, once you get out there and take care of things with Dean." John dropped the alcohol wipe at that, and the bite on his forearm remained unwashed.  


What the hell was going on?  


The next two messages were more of the same: friends calling, assuming he knew something was going on with the boys but not bothering to be specific enough to give him any clue.  


"I gave Sam the name of a guy in Nebraska that might be able to help," Joshua said in his quiet way. "You need to call him and get the hell out there, John. I don't think I've heard Sam sound quite like that before."  


John was five seconds from hanging up on his voicemail and calling Sam to find out what was going on with Dean--because everyone seemed to think _something_ was--when he looked at the call information for the next message. Sam. Well, thank God for that! Now he could find out what this was all about.  


"Hey, Dad. It’s Sam." His younger son sounded on the verge of tears. It was a sound John didn't remember hearing since before Sam hit his teens, and it set up a dull ache in John's stomach. "Uh... you probably won’t even get this, but, uh.... It’s Dean." John sat back, trying not to shake at the pain in Sam's voice. Whatever was wrong, it was deadly serious, and the fact that everyone seemed to have spoken to Sam and no one had heard from Dean set off warning bells all its own. "He’s sick, and the doctors say there’s nothing they can do." A long pause, and John could hear the hard swallow on the other end of the line. "Um....but they don’t know the things we know, right?" Sam's optimism was so obviously faked that John could feel his own tears welling up. _Dean..._ "So, don’t worry, 'cause, uh... I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get him better. Alright... Just wanted you to know."  


That last was said with a surprising amount of scorn, but John barely noticed as he hung up on his messages and placed the phone carefully on the table before him. He snatched it up again almost immediately and looked through his call log to find the date on that message.  


Three days ago.  


Which meant, from the sound of Sam's voice, that Dean could well be dead by now.  


John felt sick all over again, and it had nothing to do with the smell of ghoul and corpse that still lingered on his skin. He spent a long moment in a blank mind before his thoughts kicked in again.  


What the hell could have happened? Dean was good--a better hunter than John himself, he often thought. He'd never have let anything get the drop on him.... But then Sam hadn’t said he was hurt. Sam had said Dean was "sick."  


Dean _was_ sick....  


His mind flashed back to a cold hospital room. Dean was twelve, lying gray on a bed, an oxygen tent keeping John from touching him. His fever had hit 107 by the time they got him to the hospital, his breath heavy and thick and painful. The doctors hemmed and hawed for more than a day before allowing that Dean might live to see thirteen. And all the while, Sam sat beside the bed, his eyes never leaving his big brother....  


He should call Sam. He had to call. Dean used to mean everything to Sam before he took off and left them for Stanford.... Even now, Sam had to be a wreck--probably worse than he had sounded in that damn voicemail. But if Dean was already dead...? If John had missed that last chance to be with him? It would just be another reason for his younger son to hate him... and for him to hate himself.  


The little icon that signified new voicemail still blinked on his phone, and John pushed everything else out of his mind. He needed to listen to the messages. Maybe Dean was okay now--it hadn’t been as bad as Sam thought. Maybe whoever Joshua had sent them to had....  


_Damn._  


The next message, Johnny. Get to the next message.  


"John, it's MacCallister." That huge gruff voice still managed to sound concerned. "Did you talk to your kid, or are you just off killing something? Let me know how he's doing--both of them, actually." MacCallister hesitated while John watched his own hands shake. "When Dean's... well, if he gets back on his feet, tell him I got that shotgun we were talking about last spring... He can have it cheap."  


Press the button.  


"That boy of yours better have heard from you," Missouri ranted quietly over the line. "John, if you can't talk to your boys now, then I'm not sure you deserve either of them."  


Button. Hillary, wanting to know if Dean was okay. Button. Lincoln. Button. Carswell. Button, button, button. Had Sam called everyone in the journal? Button.  


"Hey, Dad."  


John stood up in surprise, and this time, his legs held him there. Dean sounded tired. Beaten. John looked at the display on his phone. The call only came in two hours ago: one a.m., Nebraska time.  


"Um... I know Sam called you--along with everyone else on the planet--so... I wanted you to know..." John held his breath, his busted ribs screaming. "I'm good, okay. You don't have to worry." John's breath came out in a sob of pain. Dean's voice gave him something to worry about regardless of the claim, but he was calling. He was breathing.  


It was something, anyway.  


"I know you've got a lot going on." The wistful tone was almost enough to break John completely. "We'll, uh... we're taking off tomorrow and I don't know where we're headed next--wherever we need to, I guess." He cleared his throat, and John could hear a weakness still there in the sound. He didn't know what had happened, but it was obvious Dean wasn't quite recovered. "But I'm okay, all right? Give us a call if you can." John wondered why he couldn't shake the idea that Dean didn't expect to hear from him.  


"Be careful, Dad, okay? Bye."  


John dropped into the chair in relief, the phone falling from his grasp. Dean was alive. He was okay.  


He was okay.  


The phone lay where it had fallen on the table before him, inviting him to call his son, to reassure himself that Dean really was all right. And how was Sam? he wondered. What had he had to do to make Dean sound like a convalescent and not a corpse?  


He should call. Sam would rant and rave and wonder why John even bothered to phone at all, now it was all over. He'd look at it as John abandoning them when they needed him most. And Dean...  


Dean wasn't recovered yet. He wouldn't be strong enough to protect himself if John went to see them. Hell, John couldn't even be sure that _calling_ would be safe. A paranoid would say that you never knew who was listening, but John knew all too well. He knew what the listeners could do if he gave them a hint of where the boys were....  


But he had to talk to Dean. He had to know what happened--had to hear for himself that his son was alive and kicking....  


John picked up the phone, his hands rock steady as he fortified himself with the message his son had left. He wouldn't have to bury another person he loved. And he wouldn't have to deal with looking across that grave at the one son he'd have left.  


He scrolled down the list of phone numbers he had on speed dial, pausing when “Dean Cell” came around. The bites were itching. He'd have to deal with those soon. He took one long last look at his son's name on his speed dial, and pressed the button, listening to the phone on the other end ring just once.  


"Yeah?" A voice that was rough and sleepy.  


"Caleb? It's John."  


The voice woke up. "John! What the hell's going on? Is Dean okay?"  


John smiled tiredly, though his chest still hurt from something more than busted ribs. _I'm good, okay? You don't have to worry._  


"Dean's okay."  


They'd both be okay.  


He'd meet up with his boys as soon as this was over and they were all safe. As soon as the Demon was dead, he could ask Dean all about it and tell Sam what a good job he'd done and see for himself that his sons were all right. He could deal with the fallout, then.  


As soon as the Demon was dead.  


"He’s all right. You said you had something for me?"  


* * * * * * *  
The End  



End file.
